Skilled Nursing News July 14, 2019
Multiple analyses have demonstrated that accountable care organizations (ACOs) reduce the use of skilled nursing facilities and other institutional post-acute care settings, and a new study may have identified a subtle culprit for the trend: specialist physicians.
ACOs with the highest proportion of specialist visits had demonstrably lower rates of hospital admissions, skilled nursing encounters, and emergency room visits, a team from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst found.
Conversely, those with the lowest concentration of specialist visits — and a greater proportion of primary care physician (PCP) visits — had the highest usage of SNFs, emergency rooms, and other costlier sites of care, the team determined in findings published last week in the journal JAMA Network Open.
Today's Sponsors
Today's Sponsor